I feel like I’m kind of over-it with all the devistation around us. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it’s all still here and I don’t like it! And why is it that it seemed worse than ever this morning?! Everything just looked so terrible. My new team-mate Kathy who has lots of experience with other disasters said it might just be because today was such gloomy weather. It just seemed like the buildings and cars were extra aweful today.
I feel guilty that part of me just wants to get away from seeing it all. Of course lots of the people who live here don’t have that option. This must be the start of the “survivor’s guilt” that Pearl and Patty have talked about feeling after returning home from different trips.
But Patty sent me a picture text of Pearl’s TP retaliation on Patty’s door this morning which made me laugh out loud. She made it so pretty!!
–and with that, the day began looking better than our gloomy morning. Leave it to awesome team-mates to get you back up and ready to play!
It was a quieter day over-all today with the kids, with only a few moments of kid-chaos.
One older boy in the center just seemed like he needed/wanted to talk and he described his experience with the tornado easily as we painted pictures. He and his family stayed safe in a neighbor’s storm shelter with a lot of other neighbors. He talked about what it was like to come out of the shelter after the storm and see his whole neighborhood destroyed. He talked about specific things that were damaged or destroyed and what wasn’t damaged at all. He also talked about how much he loves his new, super comfortable bed in their new house (temporary house while they make plans to re-build). I found out later that mom was concerned about him because he wasn’t talking about it.
During one of the moments of chaos this morning, I brought in a few extra card-board boxes and it created almost immediate calm.
Here’s Jane peeking inside one. The most rowdy kids at that moment all climbed in these boxes (even tho some boxes were pretty small) and they were content and even quiet for a time. Still so amazing to me what effect these boxes have for the kids!
There are so many great stories from today. I just have to say again that this team I’m working with is amazing. I feel so honored to be apart of it and so grateful for all I’m learning through them.
Thanks team!